Many users utilize Internet portal sites in browsing content located on the Internet. A portal site may provide a variety of categories of informational content that a user may access. For example, some portal sites offer a directory of web sites, a facility to search for other sites, news, weather information, e-mail, stock quotes, phone and map information, a community forum, etc. A common occurrence is that after performing a search for information or accessing a link from the portal site, users leave the portal site to visit other web sites.
A number of methods have been developed to attempt to bring a user back to a portal site, such as a toolbar located on a browser, setting a default homepage in the browser, etc. However, these methods require a user to choose to manually return to the portal site after browsing the contents of another web site. Therefore, a user may likely not remember to return to the portal site or may not want to lose his or her place within an Internet browsing session to return to the portal site. This is problematic, since many portal sites generate revenue based on how often a user frequents a portal site and how many pages a user accesses from the portal site.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.